“Our industry has benefited from a healthy manufacturing sector so far this year, which has helped spur this growth. We are hopeful it will continue throughout the year,” said AIA President Jeff Burnstein.

Sales of components for machine vision saw an increase of 4 percent, primarily due to sales of cameras, the largest segment of the North American components market, which rose by 9 percent over the first quarter of 2012. Software and imaging boards also posted single-digit growth.

“In addition to the positive news about overall growth, many industry experts are specifically optimistic about machine vision components,” said AIA Director of Market Analysis Alex Shikany. “In a recent survey, 70 percent of machine vision experts believe machine vision component sales will increase in the next six months.”

AIA’s Quarterly Machine Vision Sales Tracking Report is available free of charge to all AIA members participating in AIA’s sales data program. AIA will also be releasing an updated 2013 version of its Machine Vision Camera Market Study this summer, and will make it available at a discounted rate to AIA members, the association said.

Photonics Media presented a webinar with Shikany on the 2013 machine vision market. That webinar is available on-demand here.